Is labneh a labour of love? Is it a pickle to make your own pickles? For home cooks, there is an allure to food that’s made from scratch: a chicken stock that’s been simmered in your own kitchen can feel more rewarding than buying it. It can taste better too – and leftover bones simmered with water is cheaper, litre for litre, than store-bought.
“There are many more benefits to making your food than saving money,” says Jo Barrett, cookbook author and chef at Little Picket in Lorne, Victoria. “It’s also the sense of fulfilment and being connected to your food system. Once you start making things over and over, you can see the subtle differences in ingredients and flavours, and it becomes really quite exciting.”
There is, however, the question of time: the sourcing, prepping and cooking, the lingering by hot ovens and patiently waiting for chilling times. Three experts – Barrett, Joseph Abboud, the co-owner and chef of Melbourne restaurant Rumi, and Sally Wise, Tasmania-based cookbook author – weigh in on the kitchen basics worth making from scratch and the ones better bought off the shelf.
Pickles and preserves: worth making
Wise says making jam is easy, provided you stick to small quantities. “No more than 1kg to 1.5kg of fruit at a time. People get caught up on the idea that you must make big batches.” She recommends simmering the fruit until soft, adding an equal amount of sugar, bringing it to a boil and cooking for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. If you’re worried about jam catching and burning in the pot, Wise swears by this unusual tip passed on to her by an elderly friend: while the jam is boiling, place four to six stainless steel forks in the pot – this helps prevent the jam from catching on the bottom. “It really works,” she says.
Abboud is a huge fan of homemade pickles. “Pickles are so easy. It’s just chopped vegetables with a hot brine of vinegar, salt and water. I put them on the table at every meal, but they’re also great in salads and sandwiches.” The key is to use seasonal vegetables and not get hung up on specific recipes, he says: “Just use the flavourings and herbs you’ve already got.”
For Barrett, sauerkraut – a combination of salt and cabbage – is simple. She is astounded that people spend so much money on a store-bought product that is so cheap and easy to make. “Cut up your cabbage and weigh it. Then, add 2% of that weight in salt. Push the salt into the cabbage until the liquid stops coming out.” After that, place the cabbage and liquid in a clean, dry, sterilised jar and ensure the cabbage is submerged in the liquid. Leave it to ferment at room temperature for two weeks and open the jar daily to release the buildup of gases. When the sauerkraut has fermented – “you’ll start to smell the sulphur” – store it in the fridge.
Salami: buy it
Unless you’re an expert or come from a family with a long and successful tradition of making cured meats, Wise says salami-making is best left to the professionals. Although she used to host a sausage-making class at her cooking school, she isn’t fond of the process. To properly and safely cure salami, home cooks need to ensure very specific temperatures, humidity and pH levels, plus a very clean kitchen and equipment to prevent cross-contamination. “There is such good product out there,” she says. “It’s safer just to buy it.”
Stock: worth making
Today’s roast chicken is tomorrow’s chicken stock – it just takes water and time. Barrett says: “For example, if you had a roast chicken for dinner, pick all the meat off, then put the carcass in a pot with cold water. Add a spoonful of apple cider vinegar to help draw out the calcium and simmer for about four hours, then remove the bones and reduce further to concentrate the flavours.” Barrett uses the same technique for red meat bones. “You can also freeze your bones until you have a good quantity so you can make a big batch in one go,” she says. The finished stock can go into a container for the freezer or pop it into ice cube trays to use in sauces.
Ice-cream: buy it
Barrett likes to cook lots of things from scratch, but one thing she will not make at home is ice-cream. “For me, the pleasure of ice-cream is going out to get it. I don’t want to sit on the couch and eat it,” she says. “And, of course, there are so many amazing ice-cream makers, especially in Melbourne.” While making your own ice-cream allows you to go full Willy Wonka on the flavours, you’ll need an ice-cream churn to create the correct texture. With domestic ice-cream machines costing anywhere between $100 and $500, that’s a significant investment for the occasional sweet treat.
Yoghurt and fresh cheese: worth making from scratch
Homemade yoghurt is a gift that keeps on giving. “It’s just a process of boiling full-fat milk, then letting it cool to the right temperature, adding some yoghurt, then covering it and leaving it in a warm place to set,” Abboud says. “My mum used to assemble it at night and it would always be ready by morning.” From there, it can spin off into labneh – simply drain the yoghurt through cheesecloth until it’s firm and use in a range of dishes and dips, Abboud says.
Barrett is a fan of making marinated feta: “You just need to buy some rennet and culture [widely available online] to get you started and although the process is spread out over a few days, there isn’t much to do.” When the feta is ready, Barrett packs it into jars with olive oil, garlic and herbs. It will keep in the fridge for months, she says, and when you finish a jar, use the leftover oil for salad dressing.
Butter: buy it
The one time Wise tried making butter, it was a disaster. “There was buttermilk flying everywhere as the solids separated from the liquid,” she says. Butter only tastes as good as its ingredients and top-shelf cultured butter is made from cultured buttermilk. So if you attempt to make your own butter from commercially available supermarket cream – often pasteurised and uncultured – it will rarely taste as good as the top-quality stuff.
If you want to make your own, source high-quality organic cream, add culture and make it in small batches.
Hummus: worth making from scratch
“Hummus is something that’s really worth making, because when it’s fresh it’s so delicious,” says Abboud. If you have a food processor and the basic pantry ingredients – tinned chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice and water (and garlic for those who like an extra kick of flavour) – you can whip up a batch in minutes. Although tinned chickpeas are pre-cooked, Abboud recommends simmering them in water with a pinch of bicarb soda so they become very soft. Once you’ve mastered hummus using tinned chickpeas, try making it from scratch with dried – soak and cook them yourself for an even more economical (and barely harder) option.
Puff pastry: buy it
Although Wise writes extensively about baking and encourages everyone to give it a go, she rarely makes puff pastry. “If you’re making something like sausage rolls, where the pastry isn’t the star of the show, just buy butter puff pastry from the supermarket. I’d only recommend making your own if you need something superlative,” she says. It involves laminating – a fiddly pastry process that involves hammering half a kilo of butter into a 2cm-thick slab, then folding, refolding and chilling the butter in a thin dough over the course of many hours. If this sounds satisfying to you, it’s probably worth making a big batch for the freezer; if not, it’s worth your time and money to simply buy it.
White bread: worth making from scratch
Wise says anyone can master bread and a basic no-knead recipe can take many forms: dinner rolls, buns, pull-aparts, cheese bread or fruit breads. Wise’s recipe below uses easily sourced pantry ingredients (plain flour, salt, sugar, yeast and olive oil) – and the only special equipment you need is an oven and a loaf tin. “There’s nothing like eating bread straight from the oven and it creates an amazing aroma throughout the home,” she says.
Sourdough bread: buy it
It was the bread of the pandemic but Wise and Abboud agree that making your own is challenging: anyone who’s witnessed their sourdough “mother” morph from a healthy froth to a foul-smelling grey sludge at the back of the fridge will relate. “It’s a demanding little beast,” Wise says. “When you have a busy life, you want to make something quick and no fuss.” And Abboud says good-quality sourdough is widely available in bakeries.
Sally Wise’s basic bread loaf – recipe
For this recipe I use 24cm x 13cm bread or loaf tin that is 9cm deep. Anything close to that size is fine. However, you can also use this amount to make a large cob or Vienna-style loaf and bread rolls of any shape or size.
600g plain flour, plus extra for kneading (4 cups)
4 tsp instant dried yeast
3 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
500ml warm water, approximately (2 cups)
In a large bowl, combine the flour, yeast, salt and sugar.
Make a well in the centre and pour in the olive oil and enough water to make a soft dough. Add a little extra water if needed.
Cover the bowl with a food safe plastic bag or tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place for about one hour or until approximately doubled in size. (At this stage you can take the dough to the following step, or if you have time, turn it over with a spoon and let it rise again. This enhances the flavour and improves the texture.)
Preheat oven to 220C/200C fan and grease the bread tin.
When ready, turn out the dough on to a lightly floured surface and knead briefly until smooth (about two minutes). Shape into two equal-sized balls and place them side by side in the tin. Cover with a tea towel and allow to rise almost to the top of the tin (times will vary depending on the warmth and humidity of your kitchen).
Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 190C/170C fan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes more or until well risen and golden, and when the loaf sounds hollow when tapped with the knuckles. Turn out on to a wire rack to cool.
